Facebook Mid-Roll Ads Not Making Enough Profit for Publishers

A crucial component of any sport is the videos and more importantly how publishers can use this format to make money on different platforms including Facebook. The internet giant new feature Watch Tab has enabled the company to commission platform-exclusive programming from external media companies in six key genres, including sports through which many big publishers are involved. However, a new Digiday report from Sahil Patel reveals that publishers are not getting what they signed up for. Aside from live sport events there is plenty of non game sport content that is allowed to run on Watch Tab including Vox Media (SB Nation’s parent company), BuzzFeed, Bleacher Report, Barstool Sports, Whistle Sports, McClatchy, and NFL Films are among the outlets generating shows for the social media platform. So it goes without saying that sport publishers have embraced the platform as an avenue for their ads, however according to Patel most of the publishers are not getting good enough revenue.

Patel talked to five prominent publishers who claim that they are not getting much revenue in terms of CPM (cost per thousand impressions) from those mid-roll ads:

Five publishers participating in Facebook’s mid-roll ads test, which began in March said, “The product isn’t generating much money.” One publisher said Facebook-monetized videos had an average CPM of 15 cents. A second publisher, who calculated ad rates based on video views that lasted long enough to reach the ad break, said the average CPM for its mid-rolls is 75 cents. (Facebook’s mid-roll ads don’t show up inside videos in the first 20 seconds, which means many three-second video views aren’t “monetized views.”)

A third publisher made roughly $500 from more than 20 million total video views on that page in September. (This publisher had not calculated CPM, as total video view count includes videos that were not monetized by Facebook mid-rolls.) A fourth publisher confirmed revenue was low without giving specifics. (A fifth publisher, when asked about Facebook mid-roll CPMs, responded by texting lyrics to Flo Rida’s “Low.”)

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